This may be your last chance to save 74 miles of county roads from being closed by the Emery County bill.
Yesterday evening, Emery County hosted a public-information meeting attended by about a hundred people, almost all of them residents of Castle Country.
First I need to sincerely commend the Emery County commissioners, state officials, and congressional staff for providing me with a forum to express OHV rider concerns with the Emery County bill (part of S. 47). They let me speak for an hour, then invited me on a panel discussion, then gave me the last word despite my criticism of their bill. They certainly made their case, but they tried to give straight answers, and I could not have asked for more on that evening.
Second I'd like to discourage any grumbles of boycotting businesses in Emery County. Some of the greatest champions of public access run stores like Ward's 4x4 and CarQuest, plus Eastern Utah Self-Storage / Peterson Chemical / KOAL Radio in neighboring Carbon County. Even boycotting a specific business seems counterproductive when the goal is to get a community functioning well... maybe unless that business starts with P and ends with 'atagonia. (I actually appreciate and have benefited from some environmental activism, but not from dishonesty, by any side.)
Third, my point was to provide details, thus people could form informed opinions. Personally I still believe strongly that the current bill is worse than a national monument. When developing the 2018 bill, they dropped OHV gains like codifying the Swell travel plan such that BLM would have to compensate for any necessary closures within that area. Therefore the county and congressmen hung their hats on the fact that, despite a lack of OHV gains, there would be no OHV losses in terms of immediate closures. Yet what they amended in December, and disclosed in January, was wilderness expansion that would permanently close 74 miles of county Class D primitive roads (in addition to some trails that I'm willing to overlook). Most if not all of these roads are currently not prohibited by BLM or SITLA for motorized travel, as I explained at the public-info meeting. (See
Holly Jorgensen's videos, particularly the first one that's 49:48 minutes, and the last one that's 44:18 minutes.)
This pending tragedy may stem from keeping the bill's development away from OHV representatives last year but, the fact is, no one can change the past. All I expect of elected officials is to do whatever possible from this day forward. In a matter of hours, the Senate could vote for this bill (actually the package of bills that includes Emery County). But there are several more steps to the legislative process. The commissioners and all congressmen from Utah have a chance to either pull the Emery County bill from the package, or else trim back the wilderness boundaries to avoid those 74 miles of county Class D primitive roads, which is commonly known as "cherry stemming." Even though that still wouldn't be any better than a monument, in my opinion, it would make things right.
You may feel like hope is lost, but you'll regret not charging through the finish, and here are a few inspiring photo's of what's at stake. All three roads are in the San Rafael Desert above Labyrinth Canyon, and all three roads would be permanently closed to all mechanized use by the Emery County bill:
1&2. SW of Bull Hollow (road and nearby stock pond) N 38° 39.162' W 110° 07.120'
3&4. spur N of Lookout Point Road (views from end of road) N 38° 39.620' W 110° 04.955'
5&6. spur S of Colonnade Arch TH (road and drill hole at end) N 38° 32.689' W 110° 05.098'
To contact the county commissioners and congressmen, go to...
www.sageridersmc.com/land-use-issues.html
...and click on File #0. Please keep the passion and the civility that everyone displayed yesterday.